What Hurts the Most
by xXxStarStrifexXx
Summary: Cloud never told his superior, his best friend the Soldier just how much he cared, and now it's too late... Cloud Strife X Zack Fair m/m relationship mentioned.


**What Hurts the Most**

A/N: this entire thing reflects on a Zack/Cloud relationship so if you don't like it, don't read it. No worries, eh? Also, all mistakes are mine, sorry if there are many.

Disclaimer: I obviously don't own Rascal Flatts' "What Hurts the Most". I point this out in the story and I do it here too. It's amazing and as I am musically retarded, it's clearly nothing to do with me.

_Cloud never told his superior, his best friend the Soldier just how much he cared, and now it's too late..._

Cloud walked into his desolate quarters, filled with Zack's junk. Zackalways had too much stuff. Cloud thought morbidly. He was fatigued after 6 hours of enforced training and 3 extra hours of work as punishment for not being strong enough, being too weak, too slow to save Zack.

Zack had been gone for a while now – 3 months - but godamnit it still hurt. He found a radio near his bed, peeking out through a mound of dirty washing, and switched it on. His shoulders slumped as he sat on the bed and listened to the cheery radio presenter introducing the next song which he apparently loved – 'Rascal Flatts' "What Hurts the Most"'. Cloud laid down on his bed as the song began to play. Soon words began to drift around the room and Cloud drifted into a barely semi-conscious state.

_"I can take the rain on the roof of this empty house, that don't bother me.  
__I can take a few tears now and then and just let them out.  
__I'm not afraid to cry every once in a while even though going on with you gone still upsets me.  
__There are days every now and again I pretend I'm okay,  
__but that's not what gets me."_

It was true, being alone wasn't too hard – he was often, if not always, alone when Zack was away. Cloud cried nearly every day, usually at night, when no one would think him weak or pathetic but sometimes he couldn't hold it in and would cry silently around other officers occasionally in the Mess Hall where he could keep his head down. In public he was the same quiet yet smiling Cloud Strife, every day he could manage, he pretended around everyone he had got over Zack's death but Cloud didn't know if he would ever move on.

_"What hurts the most was being so close,  
__and having so much to say and watching you walk away.  
__Never knowing what could have been  
__and not seeing that loving you is what I was trying to do."_

The more the barely awake Cloud thought, the more the song reflected his feelings before and after Zack's death. Every time Zack went to leave for a mission Cloud always tried to tell him how he felt in case he never came back. Yet the last part of the chorus suited Zack – he would never know what could have happened between them. If anything. Zack never saw that all Cloud was trying to do was get close to him and love him with everything he had, the way he always had. _To be honest,_ he thought with a mental sigh___, __I think I always will._

_"It's hard to deal with the pain of losing you everywhere I go,  
__but I'm doing it.  
__It's hard to force that smile when I see our old friends and I'm alone.  
__Still harder;  
__getting up, getting dressed, living with this regret.  
__But I know if I could do it over;  
__I would trade, give away all the words in my heart that I left unspoken."_

It was especially hard when he came across anyone who'd known Zack and, as this happened a lot, generally life was quite difficult. Many people had known and loved Zack, but few in the way Cloud did. Had. It was so hard going about duties, regretting so much. Cloud knew if he could turn back time everything would be different – at least Zack would have known. He would have told Zack everything, the dreams he'd had of their impossible future together, the thoughts of Zack he had every waking moment.

_"What hurts the most was being so close,  
__and having so much to say and watching you walk away.  
__Never knowing what could have been  
__and not seeing that loving you is what I was trying to do."_

Even in his dreams, there is no escape from Zack. The worst dreams are those involving the glassy look in his lifeless eyes, the overwhelmingly loud sounds of his own anguished breaths and the sickly scent of Zack's sticky blood clogging his senses and dyeing his bright blonde hair a sanguine red. Ghostly phantoms of Zack walking out of the compound in the pouring rain, similar to that during which he died, haunted his mind between sleep and consciousness.

_"What hurts the most was being so close,  
__and having so much to say and watching you walk away.  
__Never knowing what could have been  
__and not seeing that loving you is what I was trying to do."_

As the song began to trail to an end, Cloud let the tears run freely down the soft skin of his cheeks. Zack had been his mentor and more, his best friend, his inspiration, his reason for living. Cloud was not prepared to forget those feelings, no matter the anguish they caused him day after day. The tight pain in his chest never abated, even when he actually smiled without forcing it onto his face.

The worst of it was, Cloud had spent the previous few months before Zack's death figuring out exactly how he felt and building up the courage to tell Zack. In the few weeks before the fateful day, Cloud had even been wondering whether Zack might, just might, accept what he had to say. No, more than accept. Feel the same. Cloud had honestly thought Zack might have loved him more than he ever loved Aerith. But with Zack's death, he had forgotten his conviction and lapsed into self pity and then self punishment.

That was the worst of it for Cloud, but the worst of it in reality, was that Cloud was right. Zack had loved him, all along. Not as a brother, or a friend, or an occasional lover. Zack had wanted him for months, to share his life with. Not knowing how long that would be.

_"I'm saying that loving you, that's what I was tryin' to do..."_

The last line of the song seemed almost to have been sung in Zack's tender bass tones, but Cloud was too far gone to hear it. His consciousness drifted just out of reach and so he didn't hear the soft words or feel the phantom touch of lips on his.

But he dreamt about it.

A/N: Thanks for reading everyone :D Hope it was worth it, please review if possible.


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